Oakland Crafts New Legal Tool To Fight Prostitution

OAKLAND (KCBS) – Oakland is going after pimps, johns and others involved in the sexual exploitation of women – four wheels at a time. The city’s Public Safety Committee approved an ordinance putting prosecutions back in the hands of the city attorney.

KCBS’ Tim Ryan reports:

The plan, said Police Lt. Kevin Wiley, is to seize the vehicles of people who are arrested a second time within three years.

“They’re selling children, and they’re getting them in every fashion, usually through violence or harsh sexual assaults, and it’s gotten out of control,” said Wiley.

The idea is that the pimps will be less effective without their vehicles.

“Because it’s a lower economic area, people just don’t care, but these are children!” said Oakland resident Lisa Sandoval.

The ordinance, still in need of a full city council vote, cleans up language that the California Supreme Court had earlier ruled unconstitutional, and it includes vehicles used for illegal dumping.

Tim Ryan graduated from CSU Chico with a Journalism degree and worked at KSRO Radio Santa Rosa and WCCO News/Talk CBS station in Minneapolis from 1982 through 2000. After several stints with CBS Radio out of NY he made his way to the Bay Area joini...